Training

Post Marathon Training Guide - Advanced Schedule, Week 2

Monday: Four easy miles for today's run. This is an increase of one mile from last week's Monday workout. I'm trying to get you back to a steady-state level, and one way to do it is to institute slight mileage increases. Sudden increases offer a route to injury.

Tuesday: Run 6 x 400 at your 5-K pace, jogging or walking 3-5 minutes between. (If not running on a track or measured road quarter-mile, simply run for about the length of time it would take you to cover 400 meters.) Don't forget to warm-up by jogging a mile or so and stretching. Cool down afterwards too. This is an increase of two quarter miles (or "quarters") from your Tuesday workout last week. Next week, I'll ask you to do eight.

Wednesday: Four miles today. Remember: during our 18-week buildup to the marathon, Wednesday was the midweek day on which we asked you to run an easy run between speed workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The pattern continues. I don't intend to push you too hard during your post-marathon recovery, so make sure you do do this run "easy."

Thursday: Your second speed/repeat workout of the week. Run 3 x mile, jogging 3-5 minutes between. Run your miles at about the pace you would run that distance during a 10-K race.

Friday: Total rest. Don't stay out too late tonight. You still want to catch up on any sleep you might have lost during the hard weeks of training and, especially, before the marathon, when nervousness might have prevented you from sleeping deeply. Sleep loss is cumulative, and it's time to catch up.

Saturday: Do a 35-minute tempo run today. Begin by jogging 10 minutes, accelerate gradually to marathon pace for a 15-minute period, then slide off the pace the last 10 minutes of the run. Keeping with the spirit of this second tapering week, whatever you do today should not be done with high intensity. You're still wounded from all the effort you put into the marathon two weeks ago. Stay away from beach volleyball games--which may not be too difficult to do if yours was a fall marathon and this is November. Regardless, don't injure yourself by doing something foolish.

Sunday: Run 75-90 minutes. This is an increase of 15 minutes (bottom end and top end) from your workout of 60-75 minutes last weekend. I'm still allowing you the option to do slightly less if you aren't fully recovered from the marathon yet. And don't worry about how fast you run during this time period.

TIP OF THE WEEK: Once back with running, don't run too hard or too fast too soon. Dr. (Jack) Scaff recommends the 10 percent rule: No more than 10 percent of your total mileage can be spent in racing or speedwork. "After you've run a marathon, you need 260 miles of training before you enter your next event or start doing speedwork," he says. "For someone running 30 to 40 miles a week, that means six to eight weeks of recovery running. Someone used to higher mileage probably recovers sooner."